


Historical Notes for Ego Mulier

by velcroboyfriends



Category: No Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-23
Updated: 2015-08-23
Packaged: 2018-04-16 20:30:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4639158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/velcroboyfriends/pseuds/velcroboyfriends
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>All the notes I wanted to include for Ego Mulier wouldn't fit in the endnotes, so I'm putting them here instead.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Historical Notes for Ego Mulier

**Author's Note:**

> All the notes I wanted to include for Ego Mulier wouldn't fit in the endnotes, so I'm putting them here instead.

Elizabethan theatre was a far different beast from most modern theatre that you are likely to have seen. The most notable difference is that, in England (although not the case in Europe), no women were allowed on the stage, and all roles were played by men. This lasted until 1660, when Charles II first allowed English women to become actors. Before this, female roles were usually played by so-called 'boy players,' who began as very young apprentices and continued playing female roles until their early twenties. The last, and most famous, known boy player was Edward Kynaston. He had to give up playing female roles in 1660 when women took to the stage, a shift which is explored in the movie Stage Beauty, which was a big inspiration for this fic.

Boy players wore thick pale make-up, called ceruse, to lighten their skin and make them look more feminine. This lead-based paint was very dangerous to the wearer. They also wore rouge on their cheeks and lips, and wigs over their real hair. Women's clothing of the time had many layers. The bottom-most was the shift, a thin shapeless cotton dress. The structural garments above it were the bodies (known as stays or a corset), which formed a flat, conical shape and were enforced with reed to shape the body, and a farthingale, a hoop skirt made with circles of reed or whalebone. Above this, tied around the hips, was worn a bumroll, to make the wearer's skirts look even fuller. Next were the underlayers: a kirtle, or underskirt, and a partlet, a garment consisting of a high collar and a filled-in shirtfront that extended only to the underarms. This could be left open or tied closed at the neck, and it was tied under the arms to keep it secure. The final outer layers consisted of a bodice and overskirt. Elizabethan clothing had very few seams; all the pieces connected together with laces, including the sleeves of a bodice. Women who wore clothing like this required the help of lady's maids to get them into and out of it. Common women who couldn't afford lady's maids wore much simpler clothing, usually consisting of a shift, a front-lacing corset, a petticoat, a front-lacing bodice and a simple overskirt.

Another difference in Elizabethan theatre was its presentational style. While most modern theatre uses a representational style, where the actors behave as though the characters are being observed in their daily lives through an imagined 'fourth wall' between them and the audience, Elizabethan actors put forth no such illusions. There were no sets, no costumes (actors wore whatever nice clothing they had), and very little movement onstage. Actors delivered their lines outward to the audience with very little sense of realism; acting then was more like giving a series of speeches. This was both for practical reasons - the audiences of the time were usually very loud, with members of the audience talking, heckling, cheering, &c. - and because the sort of realism we're familiar with was simply not expected or even thought of. This continued for the next two centuries; representational, 'fourth-wall' acting didn't emerge until the late 19th century.

This fic takes place in the year 1617, a year after Shakespeare's death. Lee and Richard are in the King's Men, the acting company that performed at the Globe. Elizabethan acting companies were organized around a group of several 'sharers,' who played the major roles in plays and stood to earn a share of the profit from every play produced. They helped to manage the company, and held coveted positions. Beneath them in the structure were hired men, who were hired for individual plays and who played minor roles. Lowest were the apprentices and boy players. In the fic, I mention Richard Burbage, the most popular actor in the King's Men at the time, as well as Nathan Field, who began as a boy player himself and eventually became a sharer in the King's Men. He had a reputation for being quite the ladies' man, and fathered at least one illegitimate child.

The Globe, where the King's Men performed, is a typical Elizabethan theatre. It has a small raised stage surrounded by the 'pit,' an area of flat packed earth where commoners (called 'groundlings') stood to watch the plays and, behind the pit, rows of multi-storied galleries where richer theatregoers would sit to watch. The galleries form a circle around the stage, except for the area right behind the stage, which is the wall of the tiring house, where actors would make their entrances and exits. Within the tiring house was the tiring room (now known as a 'green room'), where actors would prepare for the performance and wait between scenes. Plays were always performed during the afternoon, so that daylight coming in through the open roof of the theatre could light the space.

Three plays are mentioned in this fic: Romeo and Juliet (only a brief mention), Hamlet and Macbeth. I'll assume you're familiar with the first play. For Hamlet, I mention two characters: Ophelia, Hamlet's young lover, and Gertrude, Hamlet's mother. Hamlet, a Danish prince, is referred to once as the 'Dane'. In the fic I go into more detail about Macbeth. The basic plot of the play is that Macbeth, the Thane (a Scottish title equivalent to the son of an earl) of Glamis, is told by witches that he shall become the Thane of Cawdor, and then King after that. After he tells this to his wife, she encourages Macbeth to kill Duncan, the King, that he might inherit the throne, which sets him on a path of more bloody killings. This play is thought by theatre practitioners to be cursed, and to say the word 'Macbeth' outside of a performance or rehearsal of the play brings bad luck to a performance. There are many euphemisms used for it. The play is usually referred to as 'The Scottish Play.' Macbeth himself is referred to as the Thane, the Scottish Lord or, more casually in a modern setting, 'Mackers.' His wife, Lady Macbeth, can be called the Scottish Lady, the Dark Lady or the casual modern varient, 'Lady M.'

Finally, I want to talk a little bit about homosexual relationships in the time period. Most of my thoughts about this are coming not from research of the time period itself, but from what I know of sexual politics in classical Rome. As the Elizabethans were avid Classicists, it makes sense to me that men would take their cues from the ancients when it came to sex between men. Although homosexual acts were considered acceptable in Rome, they were hardly thought of the same way we think of them now. Rather than basing sexual identity on the genders one is attracted to, Romans based theirs on whether one is an active or passive participant in sex. Upstanding Roman men were expected to be active, whether they were  
engaging in sexual acts with a women or with a man. For a Roman man to allow himself to be penetrated, orally or anally, was considered to be highly shameful. Thus, Roman men only carried on homosexual relationships with boys or slaves as the passive partners. The active/passive relationship was never expected to switch: the active partner was always the penetrator, and the passive partner always the penetrated. Since this pretty easily maps onto the misogynistic, highly-unequal society of Elizabethan England, I've decided to use this as the general structure of Lee's past experiences and expectations of sex.

I should also say that I am not an expert on any of this, so if I've made any mistakes or if you want to know more about any of these topics, please let me know!


End file.
